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Isn't much of that though just the life of a grunt?
Even with the best organisation, comms, and will in the world, command will never have the same perspective as those who are doing the shooting, so often times orders will seem illogical, even frustrating. Yes perhaps there is space for more sitreps from the ground, but in my experience labouring on sitrep analysis can slow things down, when essentially we're all there just to blow stuff up as quickly as possible and move on to the next hot-spot.

I experienced this also last night, but it's just one of those things, I can't say I gave it a second thought to be honest. We were pulled from several engagements where we had the momentum, I just assumed there was a 'bigger picture' I wasn't aware of.

Secondly, though I'm no expert on the game I do know that ps2 is a bit of a merry-go-round anyway, sometimes the objectives switch for no apparent reason and half won battles must be left for another time.

I heard your RO pass your concerns up to 3rd Plat lead, and he passed them up to Supreme Giraffe. This is why only one squad pulled back to Quartz Ridge at first. Compared to the original full platoon fall back.

Frankly I can see why the order came, even when we had 4 squads there we lost B/C and where pretty much bottled in the tower. We had just been pushed out of Dahakka and Coramed Labs and it was a massive force we were up against (the same force we just been fighting as the whole outfit). Quartz Ridge is far more defensible.

Pulling out one squad did tip it so we lost excavations, but it only changed when it happened, not what happened. We needed a second platoon to come down behind them while we were still holding at Indar Excavations and only the Supreme Giraffe would have known if that was possible.

I do know that later from Quartz Ridge we were asked to push back out in Sundies while another platoon brought armour round from Indar Comms. That platoon seemed to sit back in their mags and watch us explode Which was a bit annoying.

RO's should relay more information back. You're pulled out of a winnable fight. Instead of going OK you can say: We think we can win this, do you still want us to pack up and leave?

I did pull some squads out of situations I thought they could not win, to avoid the meatgrinder. This was one of the agreed upon objectives of the night (no meatgrinders).

Totally agree with that.
Though less stressful, RO is as much a job as SL. First you are expected to provide regular reports without prompting from SL or PL. Second, if your SL has any problem (orders don't make sense, need backup, etc.) you are the messenger for that.
I've never been RO myself, but i asked my RO to relay info /ask questions to PL and it worked wonderfully.

Also it's much better to get an explanation if something goes wrong than keep silent and breeds resentments between SL and PL

Had a good time as a grunt in platoon 4 (I think) Delta and then led the squad for a while. Was good with good fights mostly, but the last 45 minutes or so was just back and forth doing nothing for the entire time. Oh well, was cool seeing the big numbers and such.

Things were always going to be sluggish with so many new people, I spent a while chilling in the greet channel then just wandered off into Dewi's squad where we had some pretty cool fights (ending up with us smearing our faces on the NC warpgate haha!) You can't expect perfection with such huge numbers. The comms set up was superb (hats off Eso and others) it is simply up to us to learn to utilise it better.

The chain of command we have has been refined over time so that we should be avoiding such events. There was no reason that our platoons couldn't have acted independently of each other as if Platoon 2 was someone else in TVA as opposed to Platoon 2 of RPS.

The PL's still had the same number of squads to manage. The SL's still had the same number of people to manage. The only person who had more people to manage was the SG who had more PLs.

I'm trying to actually give some constructive criticism here, which is getting over looked, so I'll say it again and leave the issue at that.

The communication last night in the squad I was in, in the Platoon I was in did not seem great. If that's because of the PL or the SL or the RO it's up to them to improve. Boris, you've said you tried to get reports from the RO's but nobody answered, so you did your job and people just didn't pay attention or whatever. Those people should improve if they were doing that.

Whoever took over from PL after Boris (I can't remember the name sorry), I and I believe a few others in Delta felt that you were making some bad calls and essentially just moved us back and forth for the guts of an hour, away from fights we were winning and to do tasks that weren't needed. I don't know why you did this, I don't know if it was you getting a command from the SG, I don't know if you asked our RO what the situation was and he didn't respond so you just decided to go ahead.

Anyway, people need to communicate better. We've a pretty solid system in place for it.

I've personally stayed away from SL/RO because I believe I can be rather difficult to understand on mumble at the best of times, but I'll give it another go and ask people if they have an issue with hearing/understanding me or not.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

The communication last night in the squad I was in, in the Platoon I was in did not seem great. If that's because of the PL or the SL or the RO it's up to them to improve. Boris, you've said you tried to get reports from the RO's but nobody answered, so you did your job and people just didn't pay attention or whatever. Those people should improve if they were doing that.

This sounds like the actual issue, you say it yourself, we have proven systems in place for this sort of thing, just need to learn to use it better. Perhaps better discussed in the AAR thread for the relevant SL/RO/PL to see (since that is what the AAR is there for, right)?

The chain of command we have has been refined over time so that we should be avoiding such events. There was no reason that our platoons couldn't have acted independently of each other as if Platoon 2 was someone else in TVA as opposed to Platoon 2 of RPS.

The PL's still had the same number of squads to manage. The SL's still had the same number of people to manage. The only person who had more people to manage was the SG who had more PLs.

I'm sorry, but this is just not true. I also have to manage the connections to all the other platoons. To say that I had nothing more to do than herd around 4 squads is diminishing the task a bit.

It's not a perfect system, believe me. For example, if any of the other platoon leads (4 guys) or the supreme giraffes (2) were talking, I could not hear my ROs. They are muted to like 20% volume. Every time a platoon calls in, I can't hear my ROs. Every time a platoon gets orders from SG, I can't hear my ROs. If platoon 2 calls to platoon 1 that they're in gals and boots-on-ground in 2 minutes, I can't hear my ROs. I think about half the comms time was inter-platoon chatter and thus unavailable for me to talk to my squads.

Perhaps some of the sitreps got lost in that traffic.

I'm guessing it works the same one level lower. If I'm ordering (say) Alpha around, ROs probably can't hear their squads. Hell, because of how Mumble works, ROs hear everything I say to the inter-platoon level. They probably can't hear their squads when I talk to the SG.

Being RO/PL also something you probably can't do right. We had a hard time getting SLs and ROs (and even PLs) last night, because whatever way you do it someone is not happy, guaranteed. And the blame always seems to fall on the PL.

Originally Posted by Jesus_Phish

I'm trying to actually give some constructive criticism here, which is getting over looked, so I'll say it again and leave the issue at that.

The communication last night in the squad I was in, in the Platoon I was in did not seem great. If that's because of the PL or the SL or the RO it's up to them to improve. Boris, you've said you tried to get reports from the RO's but nobody answered, so you did your job and people just didn't pay attention or whatever. Those people should improve if they were doing that.

Whoever took over from PL after Boris (I can't remember the name sorry), I and I believe a few others in Delta felt that you were making some bad calls and essentially just moved us back and forth for the guts of an hour, away from fights we were winning and to do tasks that weren't needed. I don't know why you did this, I don't know if it was you getting a command from the SG, I don't know if you asked our RO what the situation was and he didn't respond so you just decided to go ahead.

Anyway, people need to communicate better. We've a pretty solid system in place for it.

I've personally stayed away from SL/RO because I believe I can be rather difficult to understand on mumble at the best of times, but I'll give it another go and ask people if they have an issue with hearing/understanding me or not.

Jakkar was PL after me.

Anyway, don't diss it until you've tried it. Being RO isn't easy, being PL is harder still, and the comm system isn't as solid as you seem to think.

I never blamed the PL exclusively, I said it was an issue for all parties, including the RO and SL.

I've done SL'ing back when SL'ing included both SL and RO. I'm aware how difficult it can be to juggle the voices of the PL's, SG and your own squad. It's why I said "i'll give it another go".

There's obviously been a new issue introduced with these bigger scale operations then and that's that you are listening to too many voices.

PL's don't need to hear each other, the same way SL's don't need to hear each other.

PL's need to hear the SG and his own RO's and his own squad. There's no need for you to hear the other PL's because you can't/shouldn't be giving them orders or requests. Any information you need passed to them should be done through the SG's.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

PL's don't need to hear each other, the same way SL's don't need to hear each other.

PL's need to hear the SG and his own RO's and his own squad. There's no need for you to hear the other PL's because you can't/shouldn't be giving them orders or requests. Any information you need passed to them should be done through the SG's.

I would argue somewhat to the contrary with regards to SL's in a platoon. I was in regular contact with Quanta and Lammhueter, the other SL's in P2 throughout last night and it made a huge difference being able to co-ordinate attacks together.

The problem with sending that kinda thing through RO's is that they often are swamped by the amount of chatting, just as it used to be when SL did the lot, it means that "Delta requires support at vertical" takes more time to relay and risks getting lost amongst the chatter. Means that gen, which may be crucial, may not got reinforced in time.

SL's are for micro-management of their squad and knowing in a pinch where the other squads are and what they are doing makes for an easier time managing your own squad. RO's have plenty enough to do relaying status reports to PL and telling us where we are heading next without adding all the other squads orders in too!

I never blamed the PL exclusively, I said it was an issue for all parties, including the RO and SL.

I've done SL'ing back when SL'ing included both SL and RO. I'm aware how difficult it can be to juggle the voices of the PL's, SG and your own squad. It's why I said "i'll give it another go".

There's obviously been a new issue introduced with these bigger scale operations then and that's that you are listening to too many voices.

PL's don't need to hear each other, the same way SL's don't need to hear each other.

PL's need to hear the SG and his own RO's and his own squad. There's no need for you to hear the other PL's because you can't/shouldn't be giving them orders or requests. Any information you need passed to them should be done through the SG's.

Although it seems I've taken the mantle from Ridebird and became "that super serious giraffe", I have to disagree with you on this: SLs need to talk to each other, and PLs also. The thing is though that we do these kind of things every two months, and tactical platoon play only once per week. Taking into account turn around and rotation, there are not that many that have more than 3-4 sessions of experience as PLs, SLs or ROs in tactical operations. The vast majority of play experience is ultra-casual and, for the majority of our members, silent game sessions. So people don't have experience in what, when and how to communicate.

We also don't have any kind of training, so people don't share experience, especially about coordination and comms discipline. The end result is that when things get complicated, no matter how good the comms setup is (and we finally have a good comms setup), it breaks down, because somewhere in the chain there are bound to be people that have next to no experience with the needs of such a play style. ROs do not respond to the SL or PL, SLs do not coordinate with each other, the PL issues orders that are ignored or are irrelevant, all stem from the fact that we don't actively play with each other, we just play together, and it just so happens that at times (thankfully often enough) the stars and platoon mix align just right that coordination emerges.

I strongly believe that fostering a game style that promotes active coordination with the giraffe next to you on the ground, just coordinating movement and call outs on the lowest level, will promote coordination on the higher levels as well. If people learn to communicate as grunts, that experience scales up. A "watch it, a heavy on your right" to a fellow giraffe, scales up to "squad A, armour on your west" and to "Platoon 1 at LithCorp, TR forces pushing at Deserted Mineshaft". If people don't do the former, just propagating information horizontally, how do we expect them to do the latter, in an even more complicated and stressful situation, where they have to keep track of both horizontal and vertical comms channels?

What if you give every PL a RO who manages communication to SupGir and other Platoons? I know, there's another level of comm where every information must go through, but at least there are less people for each to talk to. I think it might be worth a try.

Not sure I'd have liked an RO as PL, I'd have felt very isolated. It's possibly because I didn't really have much of a problem with communication up or down the chain. Priority speaker was a bit annoying when trying to hear from my ROs, but that's all.

I'm happy to see people chatting things up about our command structure here, and Jesus_Phish: your input is really appreciated! We need both back-slapping to keep morale up and constructive criticism to make sure we learn from what didn't feel right this time around. The tone of your posts is just a tad aggressive though, which may be well within your rights if your experience was bad. But everyone tried their best last night, and I know Boris especially had a rather tough time and didn't really get much slack from command either. I know your intention wasn't to diss Boris' performance, but rather to get at systemic difficulties, but let's try to be nice and choose our words carefully. This goes for everyone, by the way!

So, to help move things forward, a couple of suggested action points:

Perform training for command roles (PL, SL, RO). Have people read the respective guides, go over the basics of the roles, how to set up keybinds, and then some real-life practice with smaller squads, have more than one person in the SL/RO channels, listening in, giving feedback etc.

Make sure that the guides are pointed out to anyone who colunteers for a SL, RO, PL slot, give them a minute to read through that before tossing them into the role, let them get acquainted with the role if they don't have extensive experience with it. Announce it in-game, make sure the guides (that incidentally describe how to solve all of the problems people have been complaining of) are actually read by the people who take on these roles.

Practice more often in-game, as MrEclectic suggests. Once a week for four or five people is not enough if this is to spread at any decent rate.

Use mentors; have a more experienced RO sit with the RO in his/her channel and give helpful suggestions, like "Now would be a good time to report to PL that we've reached our objective" etc.

Originally Posted by Qw33r

What if you give every PL a RO who manages communication to SupGir and other Platoons? I know, there's another level of comm where every information must go through, but at least there are less people for each to talk to. I think it might be worth a try.

Actually, this is an excellent suggestion! Can't see why I didn't think of this myself, being a vocal advocate for squad ROs. I'll see if I can find a way to accommodate this within the existing structure, we could probably achieve something identical to the SL-to-SL thing but between PLs, and have PLs each have their own RO, only they would be rather lonely, sitting apart from the squad chatter... Have to think about how to solve this.

LordKiwi gave his thoughts on the matter here, what do you other PLs think about the idea?

People aren't reading my post but seem to be playing Chinese Whispers with it.

I specifically said that my complaint wasn't with Boris or his PL, but the person after him, who he's identified as Jakkar. I also didn't specifically say "Jakkar, it's all your fault", but that during his time as PL that the communication between him and the SL and RO seemed bad.

Your other points are all good ideas. Mentors, guides will all obviously help. I also think that a RO's for PL's would be a good idea because although I understand Ecletic and Dewi's point of it being an advantage that they can talk to the other SL's, if you're PL'ing and/or SL'ing, you're going to hear 11 people in your squad, 3 other SL's and then every other PL and then your RO and then your SG. That's a lot of people talking to you or talking and you having to listen to at once. Now obviously not everyone is going to be talking to you at once but it's still a lot of people. If I remember right, Boris left saying he had a headache from trying to listen to so many different voices.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

I was in Platoon 1 so i can't comment on your situation, but giving periodic reports to PL and carrying messages from SL to PL is the RO job.

I know that when SG asked for the second mass Gal drop of the night, my squad was in a winning fight not too far from the Gal drop objective so i asked my RO to tell PL that it seemed to make sense for us to stay (and we wanted it) .
PL replied that he was up to us it was ok either way. So he stayed (and btw we saw all your Gal flying over us that was awesome)

So i don't know what happened for you, maybe the PL had major objectives you weren't aware, or maybe he wasn't aware of your exact situation, but the thing you have to remember is that it's always possible to ask clarification /suggest things to your PL

Pretty much this. In fact b3ll3nd deserves some additional praise for being an excellent PL for platoon 1. He wasn't heavy handed in his approaches, was easy to communicate with to find out how to proceed in relation to the grand plans and very responsive throughout the evening. From what I was able to make out, it seemed the other squads' ROs did well too in terms of maintaining communication at all times, which I think was a major factor for both our success and overall enjoyment.

I think different people have different tolerances to the number of voices they can pick out from a rabble, so some personal preferences should be taken into account.

I cannot praise my RO's last night enough since P" Charlie was insanely chatty (a lot of that was me in fairness) and did an awesome job filtering the wheat from the bullshit.

I've played the game with RPS since just after launch, so can pick out voices like Quantas from most situations. I know Boris has too, but yeah, lots of voices, it can get very tiring very fast.

I'm sure he also knows me well enough by now that I'm not getting at him at all in this post, just observations that he does not deal with lots of voices at once as much as soem others. Hugs and kisses darling!